NUMSA 10TH NATIONAL CONGRESS

12 to 15 December 2016
Cape Town
NUMSA PRESIDENT ANDREW CHIRWAs OPENING ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS
Members of the Numsa Central Committee,
Delegates to this 10th Numsa National Congress,
Officials of the Union
All invited guests (Local and International),
Friends of Numsa and
The media present here,
Allow me on behalf of the entire union and its membership to welcome you all to the
10th Numsa National congress. Numsa Congresses are always very serious and
disciplined occasions for Numsa members, once every four years, to meet and
determine the priorities for the next four years, for the union. Congress also reviews
the work done, in the past four years. The Numsa Congress is the supreme decision
making body of the union (workers parliament).
I know this is not exactly what we should be doing now, this late in December, and so
close to Christmas, especially for Christians! I therefore want, from the beginning,
and from the bottom of my heart, to thank each and every one of you for making this
personal sacrifice at the end of the year, when we are all very tired and needing to
rest, to come and attend this important and urgent Numsa Special Congress.
Numsa Congresses are therefore simultaneously very serious and yet very happy
occasions. Here in Cape Town too, all this must happen! As Chairperson of the
Congress I will try and make sure that this Congress lives up to the expectations of
all of us: as both a serious disciplined important constitutional event, and as a happy
occasion.
We are meeting in this 10 th Congress of the National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa at a very important historic moment both in the whole world in general, and in
South Africa in particular.

4 years after the killing of the miners in Marikana, murdered by Cyril Ramaphosa and
the ANC government (May their souls rest in peace).
We are meeting 3 years after our historic watershed conference of 2013.
We are meeting 2 years after we were dismissed from Cosatu.
This Congress is sitting in the shadow of the passing away of one of the worlds
greatest Communists. He governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from
1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Comrade Fidel Castro
served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011.
Fighting a guerrilla war at the head of his organization, the 26th of July Movement,
with his brother Ral Castro and Che Guevara, Comrade Fidel Castro overthrew the
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
The United States viciously opposed Castro's government and unsuccessfully
attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counterrevolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats,
Fidel Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to
place nuclear weapons on Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisisa defining
incident of the Cold Warin 1962.
The world working class has mourned the passing away of a very solid MarxistLeninist internationalist who did not hesitate to send his soldiers to fight wars of
liberation anywhere in the world including against the mighty of the Apartheid regime
in Angola, whom they defeated.
Fidel did not hesitate to send much needed doctors to poor African countries, and to
receive Third World medical students to study medicine in Cuba.
Long after imperialism had triumphed over Russia, Cuba has remained standing as a
socialist country and a beacon of hope to the world working class who are struggling
for socialism.
We South Africans owe our freedom to the gallant Cuban fighters who demonstrated
in Angola that a determined revolutionary army, even if small and from a very poor
country, combined with other revolutionary military forces, could defeat the evil
Apartheid military machine.
We owe it to Comrade Fidel Castro to continue the fight for Socialism. May his soul
rest in peace.
The world capitalist system is sick, very sick, terminally sick, actually. In order to
resolve its problems, all over the world the workers are under attack from employers
who, as always, are making us, the working class, pay for their global crisis of the
capitalist system. They are busy destroying jobs, cutting wages, attacking trade
unions and forcing governments to reduce spending on essential social services for
the working class.
Wars have become big global business, for the world capitalist system. Under the
pretext of fighting terrorism the world leading capitalist nations are manufacturing

more terrorists by invading violently other peoples lands for natural resources and
cheap labour. The world is indeed, headed for a Third World War.
In the absence of revolutionary emancipatory socialist organization and
leadership of the working class, we are seeing the resurgence of backward
and dangerous religious forms of worship, xenophobia, racism, global drug
abuse, violence against women and children, homophobia, accelerated
destruction of our Earth and its ecosystems, and the rise of dangerous racist
capitalist idiots to power like Donald Trump in the US.
By the time we conclude this Congress, all of us, especially delegates, must be clear
about the revolutionary moment the world and South Africa are in today. We must be
very clear about the state of world class struggles.
We must, as a matter of course, also fully learn, appreciate and deepen our
understanding of our struggles ahead to defend and grow our union, in the face of a
coordinated onslaught against the Union.
No Numsa Congress delegate must leave this Congress unaware of the
revolutionary character of the union and its members.
The historic significance of the 10 th Numsa Congress meeting in the Western Cape,
in Cape Town, is that this is where, on 6 th April in 1652, Jan Van Reinbeck, sailing on
the Dromedaris with two other ships, the Rejiger and De Goede Hoop, accompanied
by 82 men and 8 women, landed.
We the black and African working class mark that day, 6 th April 1652, when the
Dromedaris carrying Van Reinbeck landed at the Cape as the beginning of our
colonization, oppression, domination, dispossession and enslavement by the white
settler colonial population. From then on started the violent removals from their lands
of the African populations of all types.
The day of Jan Van Reinbecks arrival became a public holiday for White
supremacist South Africa with the 300th anniversary in 1952, and was celebrated as
Van Reinbecks Day until 1974. In 1980 the Apartheid government changed the
public holiday to Founders Day. This obnoxious holiday was only abolished in 1994
by the democratically elected ANC government.
To this day the white racist supremacists in South Africa still quietly celebrate 6 April
as Founders Day of White Racist South Africa!
It was in this City, in 1913, where the Land Act was passed that gave 13% of poor
land (reserves, as they called these lands) to natives and the rest of 87%, to the
white population.
We mark 1913 as the formal year when the indigenous black and African populations
were of course legally evicted from their own lands, thereby destroying their
independent social and economic means of existence. This singular act cemented
the proletarian fate of the majority of the African people in South Africa, which
formerly came into existence in 1910.

We in Numsa, are, therefore, not surprised that 22 years after the so-called miracle
in 1994, 22 years within which the ANC and its formations have confirmed that they
are no longer a liberation movement. White supremacists in this Province are now
brave enough to call black and African people animals who should be tied to ropes!
We are not surprised that white people turned up in large numbers to vote for the DA
in the local government elections, firmly confirming the colonial history and
continuing racist character of this Province in general and this town in particular. Of
course the ANC and its formations have merely provided the ammunition to white
supremacists by their horrible performance in government and by their abandonment
of the Freedom Charter.
So, when you, a black and African worker, sing and celebrate Cape Town as The
Mother City please know that you are celebrating the City that indeed was the
founding City of your colonization, oppression, domination, exploitation and
enslavement.
Outside Congress hours, those of us from outside this City and Province must take
time to see some of the history of black and African enslavement, still present to this
day, in this City.
I have taken time to reflect on some of the history of White Supremacist South Africa
and of this province and City because in this Congress, we present once more,
concrete evidence confirming the correctness of our Marxist-Leninist analysis
of post 1994 South Africa.
Our conclusions are simple but very profound: unless the racist colonial capitalist
foundations of South Africa are uprooted and destroyed, and replaced by a
Socialist South Africa in which economic and social equality and justice shall
be the new foundations, the majority of South Africans who are black and
African will continue to wallow in poverty in an extremely rich country, will
suffer unemployment in a country that can employ everyone, will endure
extreme racist inequalities and insults because the racist colonial foundations
of White South Africa remain intact, 22 years after the so called democratic
miracle of 1994.
In our 2013 Special National Congress we said the ANC had been captured by rightwing interests and was, therefore, no longer capable of fulfilling its historic mission:
ending race, gender and national oppression, domination and exploitation.
We further said the SACP had lost its socialist revolutionary character. It was time,
we said, for the working class to create for themselves a revolutionary socialist organ
committed both in theory and practice, to socialism. It was time, we said, for the
working class to organize themselves as a class for themselves!
By 2013 we in Numsa were satisfied that Zuma had failed the test; he had betrayed
the very same reasons why we supported him in Polokwane, not only did he fail to
lead a revolutionary agenda far from the 1996 class project, but his corruption had a
smell you could notice a million miles away from South Africa.

In our Special National Congress we not only called for Zuma to resign, we also
resolved to move out of the failed ANC-led alliance. For this and other reasons,
COSATU expelled us.
Today, all sorts of voices from all sorts of class forces in the ANC led alliance
are calling for the very same things they all worked hard to destroy Numsa for
demanding in 2013.
There is no difference between Zuma and Ramaphosa; they are one coin with two
sides.
There is the emergence of right-wing voices called Save Our South Africa which
has become a popular phrase and slogan, among the right-wing. Whose South
Africa is this they are talking about?
None of these right-wing, and frankly, racist voices want to abolish the South Africa
that is based on the colonization, oppression, domination and exploitation of black
and African labour in general, and the African woman in particular.
Numsa has only contempt for these reactionary voices who want to mislead the
majority of the people of this country who are the black and African working class
that South Africa has ever been good at any time, for the majority of this country
who are the black and African working class.
The 10th Congress Numsa Secretariat Report to be presented by our General
Secretary, will demonstrate how cruel, insensitive, savage and racist both the old
and the so called new South Africa have been and continues to be, to the majority
of South Africans the black and African working class, who are more than 90% of
the population of this country.
We can now confidently declare that the so-called 1994 negotiated settlement has
collapsed! You indeed must be really blind to believe that we live in a new South
Africa, I must confirm! Today, land remains largely in white settler hands. Banks,
mines, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and agro processing and more are all
concentrated in white monopolies, 22 years after 1994.
Africans are languishing at the bottom, tortured by poverty, unemployment and
inequalities. Small and largely meaningless social grants, rather than real and wellpaying and satisfying employment, have become some salvation for more than 17
million black and African people!
Precisely because the past 22 years have not uprooted the racist colonial economy,
white supremacists are now brave and are openly insulting black and African people
and calling them monkeys, animals, retards, inferior creatures, baboons and so on.
Jacob Zuma himself has not been spared; it has become a white and black liberal
artistic sport to paint his genitals a racist and savage throw back to how historically,
from the days of slavery to date, white supremacists have always feared the socalled and mythical virility and sexuality of the black and African male.

We the black and African working class will never experience a racism-free world
unless and until the world capitalist system is destroyed and replaced by socialism,
because racism in the capitalist era is the other side of the capitalist coin.
As we gather in this Congress, we see that capital is consolidating its hold on
the super-exploitation of black and African labour in South Africa, and
COSATU has become a cheerleader and main campaigner of the leading
capitalists for the presidency of the ANC and the country!
Black and African working class youths in nurseries, primary and high schools and
universities are fast working up to the fact of the authoritarian an anti-emancipation,
patriarchal, racist and colonial character and content of the entire education system
and the school socialization they are forced to endure.
South Africa's entire school system has become a key site of working class struggles
in South Africa today.
Working class students are fighting against financial and other forms of exclusions in
the school and university systems of South Africa.
All this proves the correctness of our analysis of post-1994 South Africa as still being
colonial, racist and based on the supper exploitation of the black and African working
class. Among these, of course, the African woman is the worst affected.
Congress must give clear and practical guidance on how the union must respond to
the struggles of black and African working class children and youths in schools and
university. Free decolonized and emancipatory education from birth to death
must be our motto. What struggles must we wage to win this fight? Congress must
pronounce on this all important matter.
In order to continue to police black and African poverty, we expect capital and the
state to become more insensitive to the plight of the black and African working class,
and to resort increasingly to brutal and savage means of suppressing the working
class. Marikana was a warning shot; more is to come.
What then, are our revolutionary tasks of the moment? All of us, members, shop
stewards, organizers, officials and ordinary employees of the union must participate
in education, mobilization, organization and the struggle for a Socialist South Africa.
The alternative to this is the continued super-exploitation of the black and African
working class and the inevitable deterioration of their lives.
As a union, we can make this call because of our revolutionary character, which is
rooted in Marxism-Leninism and embedded in our unions constitution.
Numsa is not just any other kind of union. Besides recruitment, servicing and
bargaining for our members, we aim to end capitalist oppression and exploitation.
Our values include nondiscrimination, democracy, tolerance, militancy, worker control
and of course unity of the entire working class in general and Numsa members in
particular.

This congress must advance new ideas and improve on our ability to recruit, service,
and bargain for our members, while simultaneously growing the power of the working
class by moving swiftly to create a new revolutionary, militant, democratic and worker
controlled new federation.
We must defend and grow our union. It is a powerful revolutionary shield of the
South African working class. Our primary weapons are our numbers, and our unity.
We have defended the unity, revolutionary character and growth of the union even as
we are surrounded on all sides by very powerful enemies in the South African
capitalist state, by South African vicious and extremely backward racist capitalists, by
external ideological and political enemies who hate our guts, our ideology and our
consistent defence of workers interests.
We are determined to soldier on, to continue our fight for the full emancipation of the
world working class in general, and the African and South African working class in
particular, from the ruthless oppression and exploitation of capitalism, and for
Socialism.
There is no alternative to organizing the working class for the revolutionary struggle
for them to be their own liberators, their own masters. We have no choice but to take
on this huge revolutionary task. The alternative is permanent misery, poverty,
unemployment and suffering extreme inequalities. All this of course leads to brutal
and painful short lives, for the majority of the working class.
We must create the revolutionary mass vanguard political party to lead the struggle
for socialism in South Africa.
We must move now, from the Numsa Moment to Revolutionary Organization. The
time has come, to work to build and grow the power of the working class in our
communities and workplaces, for the struggle for socialism.
Finally

The bosses have failed to destroy this Union.

Imperialists have failed to destroy this Union
The government has failed to destroy this giant Union.
The ANC has failed to destroy this Union
The SACP has failed to destroy this Union
Cosatu has failed to destroy this Union

Nobody will destroy this mighty organization; it can only be destroyed by us.
Please allow me, now, to declare this, the Numsa 10 th National Congress Open!
Wish you all a successful conference
I thank you,

Andrew Chirwa,
Numsa President,
12th December 2016.